අඬමුද? සිනාසෙමුද?
This article critically examines the controversial tenure and actions of former Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva, detailing his abuse of judicial power for personal and political gain. It outlines his role in imprisoning S.B. Dissanayake to appease President Chandrika Kumaratunga, his subsequent legal betrayal of Kumaratunga following a personal insult regarding his behavior toward women, and his intimidation of treasury officials to secure an abnormally high pension. The author also provides a detailed investigative account of a 2004 incident near Diyawanna Oya, where police allegedly found the Chief Justice half-naked in a parked vehicle with a woman, using the cover-up of this event to highlight the systemic corruption and apathy within Sri Lanka’s political, parliamentary, and judicial systems.
රටට වෙනස්කම් අවශ්යද?
Given how rotten the political system and state administration had become, Ivan writes, winning the separatist war should be counted a miracle — the armed forces and police included people working for the LTTE for money, which shows how far the institutions had decayed. The question now is whether to go forward with that rot or reform it. Every important part is corroded: legislature, executive, electoral system, courts, public service, public services, media. The President has accepted change is needed but has set out no philosophy beyond the voting system and cabinet size, and it is unclear whether he means to win two-thirds by agreement with the opposition or by buying its members across. Ivan lists what remains unresolved — the executive presidency, a German-style mixed electoral system, the constitutional council killed after the 17th Amendment, judicial power used oppressively, customs revenue of which perhaps a quarter reaches the treasury, and education adrift.
වේගවත් ඉදිරිගමනක් සඳහා දූෂණයට වැට බැඳිය යුතුය
Sri Lanka can only move quickly after the war if it reforms the political and institutional obstacles in its way, and cutting the cabinet to thirty-five is a start. Ivan attacks a convention he traces to J.R. Jayewardene: letting ministers and office-holders enrich themselves from the transactions of the ministries beneath them, which drains the treasury and turns politics from a matter of honour into a squalid way of making money. He questions the privileges — two vehicle permits for a six-year term when one car easily lasts six years, permits for officials who already have official cars, ministers running fleets, backup vehicles for bodyguards now the war is over. Corruption is not confined to politics: Customs collects perhaps a quarter of what it should, and Inland Revenue, Motor Traffic and Excise are no different. Information technology could triple that revenue at modest cost.
පරිගණක මගඩිය ඇත්තක්ද?
The official result gave Rajapaksa 6,015,934 votes to Fonseka’s 4,173,185 — a margin above 1.8 million. Fonseka and the JVP say that figure was manufactured by the Elections Secretariat’s computer unit rather than summed from the counting centres, and some UNP spokesmen agree, but none has proved it. The signed centre reports are in the hands of party organisers in every seat; comparing a sample against the declared total would take three or four hours. That nobody has done so suggests the claim is untrue. Reports of opposition agents being driven from counting centres cover fewer than ten places, and around eighty officials staff each one — too many to suborn, and the ballots are already marked. The Elections Commissioner is also at fault for not explaining publicly how the count and final tally were conducted.
මැතිවරණ ප්රතිඵලය ගැන විවාදය
Opposition leaders claim the declared result was manufactured by the computer unit at the Elections Secretariat rather than summed from the counting centres. Ivan sets out how counting actually works — three stages, roughly eighty officers per centre, party agents present throughout, signed reports in six copies with one posted on the hall noticeboard and one handed to each candidate’s agent, results phoned to headquarters and confirmed back by the Commissioner before being faxed in writing. Any discrepancy between the centre reports and the official figure could be proved in hours, not months. He then checks: UNP organisers in Kesbewa, Moratuwa, Mawanella, Matara and Yatinuwara all report their centre documents matching the declared result, and Sajith Premadasa says the same of Hambantota. Kabir Hashim put a ten-rupee note in every ballot box in Mawanella and found them all at the count. Rather than trying to falsify the public’s genuine preference, Ivan argues, the opposition should ask why it existed.
විය යුත්තේ කුමක්ද?
Two days before the poll, Ivan states plainly that he does not want Fonseka to win — not because Rajapaksa’s administration deserves protection, but because a change driven by hatred rather than a vision would leave the country in disorder, and anarchy is worse than bad government. Defeat would not finish Fonseka: he would become opposition leader and could acquire the political schooling he lacks, having entered politics straight from the battlefield and now flying on wings borrowed from two other parties. Ivan argues the opposition’s deeper failure is squandering parliament’s committee system, where members sign the attendance sheet for the allowance and leave, breaking quorum and sending summoned officials home with their files unopened. He sets out what Rajapaksa must change: shed the relatives beyond Chamal, Gotabaya and Basil, build an anti-corruption commission on the Hong Kong model, and stop overriding the independent commissions.
The cat is out of the bag
Two TAFREN advertisements, four days apart, expose what the 100-metre coastal building ban was for. The first, on 27 February, told the country that homes destroyed inside the zone could not be rebuilt and that the government would provide 500-square-foot replacements. The second, on 2 March, exempted buildings permitted before 26 December 2004 by the Tourist Board and other authorities — which may remain, may be repaired, and may be completed if construction had begun. Victor Ivan concludes the rule applies only to ordinary residents, and that its purpose is to clear the most valuable land in the country for the tourist industry. He notes that a Coastal Zone Management Plan already existed, drawn up by specialists, with a conservation zone varying from twenty metres to more than a hundred according to local conditions, and even anticipating a tsunami; the government consulted neither the Coast Conservation Department nor its experts, who are now unwilling to quarrel with those holding absolute power. Coastal residents and hoteliers had coexisted profitably, he argues, and turning the industry into an occupier will serve neither.
The tsunami can become a political tsunami
A month on from the tsunami, Victor Ivan warns that mishandling the recovery could produce a political tsunami destructive to the government and the opposition alike. He attacks the 100-metre coastal buffer imposed by TAFREN: damage reached 400 metres inland at Telwatta and in Galle town while some houses at the water’s edge stood untouched, so the rule bears no relation to where the danger actually lay. It also bites only on the unlucky — those whose houses survive may stay, those whose houses were destroyed may not rebuild — and leaves the displaced waiting in camps for a house in a location of the government’s choosing, or buying land themselves. Pacific nations facing the same hazard do not clear their coasts, relying on warning systems and tsunami-resistant construction instead. Ivan argues that resettlement without consent breaches both UN policy on the displaced and the constitutional protection of private property, and sets out an alternative: let landowners rebuild where they lived, give them the per-capita sum the government would have spent, extend credit to ruined businesses, and revive economic life quickly.
Overcoming the disaster
Victor Ivan treats the December 2004 tsunami as a test the Sri Lankan state failed. Warning instruments existed and went unused; the armed forces were instructed too late to be effective outside the north-east where they were already concentrated. Forty-eight hours after the waves the government allocated Rs 100 million in urgent relief — a hundred rupees a head for a million destitute — and eight days later the President’s office put reconstruction at Rs 100 billion against the Central Bank’s provisional Rs 400 billion, a sum equal to a full year of government spending or three years of Tokyo consortium aid. In twenty minutes the country lost lives and property comparable to twenty years of war. Ivan argues the two catastrophes cannot be addressed separately, since housing tsunami victims alone would affront those displaced by the fighting, and calls for a two-year all-party government charged with physical reconstruction and with enacting a new constitution — something he thinks civil society will have to compel the parties to accept.
The Donkey and the Carrot
This article critiques the Sri Lankan government’s flawed approach to peace negotiations following the LTTE’s temporary withdrawal from talks. Author Victor Ivan argues that the government treats the conflict using a simplistic “carrot and stick” model appropriate for a defeated adversary, rather than treating the LTTE as an undefeated entity requiring parity and genuine trust. The piece warns against over-relying on international clout—specifically the U.S. factor—to intimidate the LTTE, which risks alienating both the Tamil rebels and neighboring India. Additionally, it highlights critical administrative missteps, such as excluding the LTTE from the Washington pre-aid conference and failing to implement post-war rehabilitation and resettlement programs due to bureaucratic inefficiency.